Tag Archives: video

I’ve been determined for several weeks to master iMovie, having lost my old PC and all the cool video editing software I used to use. iMovie has driven me mad for ages, and complains about not having the right plugins, but somehow it seemed to work. After a few failed attempts, the forums told me that it goes wrong some times and you have to rebuild everything, and that was fine. It didn’t like incorporating pictures initially but finally seemed to work.

Purely coincidentally I’d been working on this for weeks, and it just happened to time right with a movie-related daily create. LOL.

Method:
1) Soundtrack. The first task was to create the musical sound track to accompany the voice over. Used Garageband. Downloaded “Tara’s Theme” and snipped and edited the MP3 to match the original audio as near as possible. This was amazing and I realised how the music was absolutely vital to set the mood, and needed to be perfectly orchestrated to match the tensions in the dialogue. There was lots of snipping, fading in and out of passages of music, and altering the dynamics. But this was the canvas on which everything else was to sit and I loved doing this bit.

2) Voiceover. This was mainly done in one take with the addition of the final phrase which caused endless problems. Vivien Leigh had seriously left the building, and many versions later I turned from Julie Andrews to Micky Mouse. I think the final version is something of the latter. Synchronising the voiceover to the video was tricky – sometimes using two computers and eventually playing the original clip and just going for it. Actually, I think sometimes the humour is in how it doesn’t synch.

3) Acting. It certainly does help to stand up and get into the part. I think you have to be much more dramatic than you think you will eventually sound. Just prey that the neighbours aren’t listening.

4) Sound track done, saved as MP3. However, using iMovies it automatically synchs to your Garageband project file. This did corrupt once and I had to do a bit again, but it mostly worked.

5) Images. Still images were created in good old Fireworks.

6) Video project. Created in iMovie. Tested my patience, had to rebuild several times but finally worked. Lacked some functionality but OK for basic video, pictures, sound and transitions. Able to share directly to YouTube.